Television Aggregator

ABSTRACT

An aggregation system, process, article, and necessary intermediates, illustratively the system includes: a device capable of both networking and executing software programs, the device programmed from memory so that the aggregation apparatus: connects to a plurality of servers via the Internet, and authenticates itself with each of the plurality of servers, and retrieves information from each of the plurality of servers, and parses the information from each of the plurality of servers so as to produce an aggregation of parsed information, and renders the aggregation as output.

I. PRIORITY STATEMENT

The present patent application is a continuation of, and incorporates byreference as if fully restated herein, U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/053,085, filed Mar. 21, 2011. U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/053,085 is a continuation of, and incorporates by reference from asif fully restated therein, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/022,606,filed on Feb. 7, 2011, which is a continuation of, and incorporates byreference from as if fully restated therein, U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/711,442, filed on Feb. 24, 2010, issued as U.S. Pat. No.7,886,000 on Feb. 8, 2011, and is a continuation-in-part of, andincorporates by reference from as if fully restated therein, Ser. No.12/194,531 filed Aug. 19, 2008, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,908,647on Mar. 15, 2011.

Ser. No. 12/711,442 is a continuation-in-part of, and claims priorityfrom Ser. No. 11/823,836 filed Jun. 27, 2007, which issued as U.S. Pat.No. 7,673,327 on Mar. 2, 2010, which claims benefit from, andincorporates by reference from: U.S. Patent Application Ser. Nos.60/816,692 filed Jun. 27, 2006; 60/850,448 filed Oct. 10, 2006;60/872,690 filed Dec. 4, 2006; 60/872,688 filed Dec. 4, 2006; 60/872,689filed Dec. 4, 2006; 60/874,202 filed Dec. 11, 2006; 60/900,939 filedFeb. 12, 2007; and 60/934,249 filed Jun. 12, 2007. Ser. No. 12/711,442is also is a continuation-in-part of, and claims priority from Ser. No.12/194,531, filed Aug. 19, 2008, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,908,647on Mar. 15, 2011, which claims benefit from Ser. Nos. 60/965,442 filedAug. 20, 2007; 60/994,092 filed Sep. 17, 2007; 61/009,642 filed Dec. 31,2007; 61/189,319 filed Aug. 15, 2008. Ser. No. 12/194,531, filed Aug.19, 2008, is also a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 11/823,836 filedJun. 27, 2007 which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,673,327 on Mar. 2, 2010.The present patent application incorporates by reference all of thepatent applications and patents listed above.

II. TECHNICAL FIELD

The technical field is computers and data processing systems. Dependingon the implementation, there is apparatus, a method for use and methodfor making, and corresponding products produced thereby, as well as datastructures, computer-readable media tangibly embodying programinstructions, manufactures, and necessary intermediates of theforegoing, each pertaining to digital aspects of an aggregator system orcomputing as may be related thereto.

III. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard toarchitecture.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard toarchitecture.

FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard toarchitecture.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard toarchitecture.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard toarchitecture.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard toarchitecture.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a Mailoverview.

FIG. 8 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a Discoverylogic.

FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a CAPTCHAprocess.

FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to an Initialaccount import process.

FIG. 11 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a Maildisplay process.

FIG. 12 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a Viewmessage process.

FIG. 13 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a Composemessage process.

FIG. 14 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to an Accountsynchronization process.

FIG. 15 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a New mailcheck process.

FIG. 16 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a SocialNetworks.

FIG. 17 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to InstantMessaging.

FIG. 18 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to Multimedia.

FIG. 19 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to Ecommerce.

FIG. 20 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to Forums.

FIG. 21 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a userinterface.

FIG. 22 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a userinterface.

FIG. 23 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a userinterface.

FIG. 24 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to amulti-threaded message screen shot depicting a threaded message viewwithin Fuser, and further showing a folder hierarchy relating to asynched folder system.

FIG. 25 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to a Searchscreen shot depicting a search form and search result display, andfurther showing a folder hierarchy relating to a synched folder system.

FIG. 26 illustrates an embodiment, with particular regard to aMySpaceApp shot, depicting Fuser running on the MySpace platform.

IV. MODES

To orient the reader, consider a system in which one or more computersystems facilitate aggregating user content or data from third partyservice providers. The aggregating can be carried out “live” (while online) and can handle real-time and/or peer-to-peer communications bymeans of communicating over at least one network such as the Internet.The aggregating allows users to more efficiently access their otherpersonal sites to obtain their emails and other information and servicesprovided to the users by third party service providers. Preferably userscan also dynamically manage the information obtained from the thirdparty service providers too.

Depending on the implementation preferred, aggregation may occur on the“client” or “server” side. For example, there can be a master serversystem that can use a log-in engine to log the users into the thirdparty service providers' computer systems. The log-in engine can operateeither locally (on each user computer (e.g., “a client sideembodiment”)) or remotely from the user computers, from the masterserver system (e.g., “a server side embodiment). That is, depending onthe implementation preferred, aggregating can be carried out on theclient side or on the server side (or both), and in all cases the log-inengine acquires and stores whatever is necessary for the user to log-into at least one third party system.

Third party systems or sites (such as AOL, Match.com) typically areaccessible to their users by means of user log-in and/or authenticationinformation. Though embodiments herein are not limited to Internetsites, one can get an illustrative sense with reference to users eachhaving a username and a password for each of their third party systemsites, such as a web-based email site, personal networking site, jobsearch site, news site, shopping site, and/or commerce site.

Also, some embodiments can utilize a button or link for selectivelogging in to third party server systems, e.g., separate buttons orlinks to login to the user's AOL, yahoo, etc. accounts. Clicking on abutton or link would cause the user computer 2 to go to the site andsign in automatically. This permits the user to go immediately to thepage with content of interest, e.g., user messages, home page, etc. Theone button login embodiment improves over having to remember your ID'sand passwords and web addresses, but automated log-in carried out viathe log-in engine may be even more efficient.

After acquiring, from a user, whatever is needed to facilitate theuser's log-in to each of their third party systems, the log-in enginecan use the acquired information to automatically log the user computersystem into each of their third party systems. This permits pulling downthe user-accessible data from multiple sites and aggregating ofit—preferably automatically, live and in real time, and essentiallysimultaneously from multiple sites. So, for example, a user can, in realtime, access their email from their numerous email accounts in one emailbox.

After pulling down the data (email/job posting/news article/productlisting—really any user data from multiple sites), the data is presentedat the user computer system. The data preferably presented in one commonformat, for the convenience of the user. For example, this data can beparsed and translated into a common format, and a user interface canpresent the data (information or content) in a suitable (preferablycustomizable) manner.

With regard to an illustrative master server system, there can be anInternet or web site that acquires the above-mentioned user log-ininformation, as indicated above. The site can, but need not, alsoprovide its own particular service(s) (such as email or socialnetworking or job search or news articles or shopping functionality, asindicated below) in addition to facilitating aggregation of user-ownedor accessible content and functionality from other sites. That is tosay, in this example, the master server system can provide a means forusers to (more efficiently) access user data from the master serversystem and from their other personal Internet sites (and/or other thirdparty systems).

Depending on the embodiment of interest for a particular application,the master server system website can facilitate integration of any orall of a user's email, social networking websites, job search websites,news websites, shopping websites, Internet TV websites, and othernetwork “accounts” into a single, unified setting. The user is enabledto dynamically view contents and information from any of his or heruser-preferred sites at the same time. Preferably the user is alsoenabled to dynamically manage his or her contents and information too.

The master server system website can be coded in any number of ways,depending on the implementation preferred for one application oranother. For example, the web site can be coded to do multiple things atone time instead of waiting for each task or component to completebefore continuing on. This can be achieved, illustratively, with theAJAX protocol, which allows for asynchronous code execution. Also, adata base can house the users' information, including for example:unified site login (encrypted with MD5—Rijndael encryption can be usedfor email service passwords) and also other site login information. Thisdata base can be through SQL (e.g., SQL 2005), Oracle, or the like. Thecoding language can be at least one, and even a combination of PHP,HTML, JAVA, and various other languages as needed. Interfaced to the website can be an application server, a .NET applications server, JBOSS, orthe like. While the implementation for the underlying functionality ofany particular web service may be proprietary, the master server systemfocuses on getting a screen full of html data (and/or other types ofdata, such as RSS, and/or non-textual content, such as images) andmassaging the textual content of the html page to get the desired outputon the master server system web site.

The aggregator can facilitate printing (e.g, with a print button) anyopen communication, e.g., email, Facebook message Wall Post, or MySpace,message, Comment, Bulletin, etc.

The aggregator can also support one or more browsers, e.g., InternetExplorer, Firefox, Safari, and can also support browsers on differentoperating systems.

Note that a user is, of course, also allowed to delete their accountwith, or an account on a third party service, via the aggregator.

Consider the handling of some illustrative third party server systemresources.

Email Component. The email component of the master server system canallow the user to integrate their most commonly used emails into onelocation. In a sense, the site can enable accessing each email account,retrieving a list of messages from that account, combining that listwith lists from other sites, and displaying this information to theuser. The user is thus able to read, view folders and folder content,“unread,” and draft emails from all/to accounts—preferably on a singlescreen. Additionally, each message can display what account it is from,both in words and in color. For example, if the user received an emailfrom hotmail, the message can be presented to say “Hotmail” whereas anemail from Gmail might say “Gmail”, e.g., in a different color. The useralso has the ability to forward messages that are not natively email(MySpace Mail, Facebook Messages) to an email address. When composing amessage the user is enabled to send the message from multiple accountsas well as send the same message to multiple accounts. This allows theuser to send the same email text to n number of people from differentaddresses. The user has the ability to add a signature, such as adigital signature, from any of their email accounts to an email theycompose in. For example, if the user composes an email from theirHotmail email, the user can add on a signature saved through Hotmail oranother signature saved through Yahoo!. The user can also add and save anew signature to any of their emails.

The aggregated email account checks for unwanted messages (SPAM). Theaggregated SPAM check can also check all messages in the account, evenif the user has a SPAM checker on a single account. The secondary SPAMcheck is run on the server-side. The aggregated SPAM check checks a listof common SPAM attributes as well as a list of current attributes. Thisprovides a means to automatically apply GPL blacklists (e.g., Orbs,SPEWS, etc). Aggregating across all of the services can bringconsistency to an average user's anti-spam solution and can permitpeople to apply a SPAM setting on a service to service basis, not justan all on, or all off.

Examples of email accounts that can be supported include: Hotmail;Gmail; university accounts; Yahoo Mail; MSN Mail; Excite Mail; Mail.com;MySpace; AOL; Comcast etc. The following abilities are examples of whatcan be provided to users (noting that if any of the sites is notavailable, then the system site can reflect the unavailability): Search;Compose; Sort Into Folders; Create/Delete Folder; Format Text; etc. Ifsuch an implementation be preferred in one application or another, theuser can choose to forward an email to a mobile device. This can becarried out by sending the email to a phone number via Short MessageService (SMS). The user can shorten and edit the email to fit into theconstraints of text messaging. The user can choose to convert an emailto an image and forward this to a cell phone via Multimedia MessagingServices (MMS). By using MMS, emails can be read on a cell phone photoviewer. The user is enabled to add special text formatting and audioeffect to send their email to a mobile device with Enhanced MessagingServices (EMS). Note that in addition to such email services asmentioned above, email services can also include sites running specificweb based software, such as SquirrelMail or Microsoft Exchange, andembodiments according hereto can be configured to read web content offof SquirrelMail, etc.

The aggregator can also enable receiving an email sent to one emailaddress and selecting any of the user's email addresses to reply from.The aggregator can also provide automatic email address or namecompletion. That is, when a user begins inputting an email address orassociated name, the aggregator can complete the address or name byusing a list or lists of contacts imported from the aggregated accounts,or used previously by the user inside the aggregator.

Depending on the implementation desired, advertising can be appended toan email communication. The advertising can be carried out with a textmessage that includes a URL or other link.

Further, the Email Component can support one or more protocols, such assecure IMAP, secure POP3, and secure SMTP.

Dynamically Discovering Email Service Type and Configuration UsingLimited User Input

In an application allowing users to send and receive email through3^(rd) party email services, one approach can utilize a user's initialsetup to determine the type, credentials, and ancillary configurationparameters for his/her email service(s) in order to allow connectivity.This initial configuration process can be made as automatic as possibleto minimize the amount of detailed data which the user must provide.Many users, for example, do not know the host name of their POP3 serveror possibly even that they are using a POP3 server for email, but theytypically do know their email address and the password for the service.By allowing for the discovery of the remaining configuration detailstaking only the user's email address and password as inputs, a superioruser experience can be achieved.

Social Networking Component. The system can, if so desired, allow a userto have an account at a plurality of different social networking sites,and view the information that is contained within them all from a singlelocation. Optionally, a user can identify what of the information can(or is desired by the user to) be aggregated. In one illustrativeimplementation, the user can access a site directly to change theirindividual options and other site-specific data. Social networking sitescan include MySpace.com, Yahoo Groups, etc.; blogs can include Yahoo,MySpace.com, etc.

The social networking component of the website can do any or all of thefollowing: retrieve a friend's list from each site; retrievephotos/messages/announcements, etc from each site; if a friend haslisted an AIM/Yahoo Messenger/MSN Messenger, etc, screen name, the usercan be able to directly IM that person even if the social site that areat does not support this feature; message other members of the same site(each site can support this separately); search for and find othermembers of that site; view not only their personal blog/journal, butalso their friends (protected and private entries can be includedassuming the username supplied to the unified site has access to theseentries); post entries/updates to each site as supported; etc. Examplesof supported websites include: MySpace; Facebook; Bebo; LiveJournal;Dead Journal; Xanga; Blogger; Tagger; etc.

Aggregated Folder Handling in Email. The system can unify email foldersfrom individual email providers into a consolidated, single view. Thedefinition of the master, merged folder structure can exist on thecentral site. Standard folders such as Inbox, Sent Items, Trash, Spamand Drafts can be rendered to the user, and emails from the underlyingproviders that exist in these standard folders can be consolidated intoa single, master folder. The system can merge the folders of the samefunctional purpose with different naming conventions; for example‘Trash’ and ‘Junk’ folders on one provider can be merged with ‘RecycleBin’ and ‘Spam’ folders of another provider. Custom created folders thatthe user created on the underlying services can also be rendered on themaster server system and contain any existing messages the user hadplaced in those folders.

The user can empty the trash at the aggregator and the aggregatorcomputer system will cause the messages at the aggregated services to bepermanently deleted, where such services have trash. If there is notrash feature on a service, in another aspect, the aggregator system canmake the “trash” disappear and mark the “trash” so that the underlyingservice will make it expire.

The aggregator system can also toggle the “read” and “unread” emailindicators.

Also, Facebook and MySpace provide a communication venue analogous toemail, but limited to other users of the services; these “messages” canalso be aggregated into one inbox provided by an embodiment herein. Thiscan be the same inbox that aggregates regular email.

Yet further, there are other communication avenues provided by Facebookand MySpace, e.g., Wall Posts, i.e., comments left by one user onanother user's profile. MySpace has a similar feature called “Comments.”These can also be aggregated, e.g., into the inbox along with the email,depending on the embodiment preferred. Depending on the implementationpreferred, the aggregator can enable a user to take action, e.g.,respond to a requested action from the service.

Further, Myspace has a broadcast called a “Bulletin” that can, forexample, be brought into the inbox, depending on the embodimentpreferred. Generalizing a bit, the aggregator can aggregate any of thecommunication venues, such as a “Friend Request”, a “Group Invite”, and“Invite to an Event”, and Facebook's equivalents (e.g., to Bulletin). Asabove, depending on the implementation preferred, the aggregator canenable a user to take action, e.g., respond to a requested action fromthe service. Depending on the implementation preferred, profile picturesfrom a social network, e.g., MySpace or Facebook, can be displayed whena user views one of the social network communications, messages, wallposts, bulletins, comments, etc. If the user “hovers” (i.e., with thecursor) over the sender's picture, a preview of the sender's profileinformation can be displayed. If the user clicks on the picture, a linkis used to open a new browser window and display the URL to the sender'sprofile on the social network.

A facility for mapping folders from the underlying services to oneanother allows the user to define a centralized folder structure on themaster server system. The definition of the mappings can persist on themaster server system and allow the user to merge folders from differentservices, create new folders, extend the depth of the hierarchy and nestfolders within one another. For example, a user could create a foldercalled ‘Work’ in which they could merge folders from underlyingproviders called ‘Professional’ and ‘Job’. The user can move emails fromthe inbox to any of the folders as well as move emails from one folderto another.

Capability can be provided for synchronizing the centralized folderstructure and contents with the folder structure and contents of theapplicable aggregated services (element 6 n, FIG. 4). The master serversystem (element 4, FIG. 4) and client application (element 7, FIG. 4)can execute the creation of folders as needed on the underlying services(6 n), as well as move messages on the underlying service to match theorganizational schema implemented by the user of the user communicationsystem (element 2, FIG. 4). For example, an underlying folder can benamed ‘Jobs’ from Email System 1 and can be rendered along with itscontents in the user communication system. An email displayed in theuser communication system, having as a source Email System 2, can bemoved to the ‘Jobs’ folder, resulting in an aggregated display of EmailSystem 1's ‘Jobs’ contents with the email from Email System 2 in theuser communication system. As a result of this action, the clientapplication creates a ‘Jobs’ folder at Email System 2 and moves thesubject email to the new folder, leaving a folder structure and contentsthat are synchronized with the folder structure and content residing onthe master server system and displayed in the user communication system.

Job Search Component. This component of the master server system canallow the user to integrate job listings from various job boards/jobsearch websites. In a sense, the site can remotely access each jobboard, retrieve a list of job postings from that website, combine thatlist with lists from other sites, and display this information to theuser. The user can be enabled to read job postings and apply for thejobs from/to all accounts—preferably on a single screen. Additionally,each message can display what account it is from both in words and/or incolor. For example, if the job posting was received from Monster then itmight say “Monster” whereas a job posting from Dice might say “Dice” ina different color. If a user does not have an account on one of thewebsites s/he can still browse through the job postings on that websitebut might not be able to apply for that job through that website.

Examples of job boards that can be supported include: Monster; Dice;CareerBuilder; HotJobs; Jobing; Craigslist; etc. The followingaggregation abilities are examples of what can be provided to users:search; saved searches or “agents”; sort the postings; apply for jobs;etc.

With further regard to allowing a user to browse through job postings onseveral job boards sites like monster.com, dice.com etc., the system canaggregate the results from several sites and show the user aggregatedresults. The system can use the username and password of the user to logonto his/her account and get the results. The user can also apply forthe jobs by clicking a link on the third party server's website if theuser has an account with the job board where the posting was listed. Theuser can browse through postings on various job search websites.Representative steps to implement a Job Search component can include:user logs in to the master server system's website and goes to jobsearch page on the master server's website; user enters the search queryand selects various parameters like job location,full-time/part-time/contractor job etc and hits on “Search”; LOGIN—themaster server system can log in to each of the user's accounts (jobboards); RETRIEVE—the master server system can retrieve the results ofthe search query from each of the user's accounts; PARSE—the masterserver system can parse the retrieved html page and store the pertinentdata in java objects; AGGREGATION—the master server system can aggregatethe results from each of the user's accounts; DISPLAY—the master serversystem can display the aggregated results to the user; APPLY—the masterserver system can let the user apply for the job if user clicks on Applywithout taking the user to the respective job site; etc. Depending onthe embodiment preferred, a job search can be carried out on the clientside, the server side, or both.

Shopping Component. This component of the master server system can allowthe user to integrate product listings from various shopping websites.Depending on the particular embodiment preferred, the master serversystem can enable the user computers to aggregate, or in anotherembodiment, the master server system can enable server-side obtaining ofshopping (or other) information and relay the information to the usersvia the web site. Such an implementation is preferably carried out suchthat the user can retrieve a list of products from that website, combinethat list with lists from other sites, and display all of thisinformation. The user can be enabled to read about products and buy theproducts from/to all accounts—preferably on a single screen.Additionally, each message can display what account it is from both inwords and, if desired, in color. For example, if the product listing wasreceived from Amazon then it might say “Amazon” whereas a productlisting from eBay might say “eBay” in a different color. If a user doesnot have an account on one of the shopping websites s/he can stillbrowse through the products listing on that website but might not beable to buy that product through that website.

Examples of shopping websites that can be supported include: Amazon.com;eBay.com; Overstock.com; Buy.com; Mercantila.com; Newegg.com; etc. Thefollowing aggregation abilities are examples of what can be provided tousers: Search; Saved Searches; Compare prices; Read reviews; ViewRatings; Buy the product; etc.

With further regard to allowing a user to shop on various shoppingwebsites through a single webpage, a user can be allowed to compare theprices and reviews of an item on different sites like Amazon.com,Buy.com, target.com, Overstock.com etc. Additionally user can be allowedto buy items at the aggregated site. The master server system canprovide functionality where user can add all the websites s/he isinterested in buying from. Illustrative steps to implement the shoppingcomponent can be: User logs in to master server system's website andgoes to shopping page on master server system's website; User enters thesearch query for products and hits on Search; LOGIN—master server systemcan log in to each of the user's accounts (shopping sites);RETRIEVE—master server system can retrieve the results of the searchquery from each of the user's accounts; PARSE—master server system canparse the retrieved html page and store the pertinent data in javaobjects; AGGREGATION—master server system can aggregate the results fromeach of the user's accounts; DISPLAY—master server system can displaythe aggregated results to the user; BUY—master server system can let theuser buy the product if user clicks on Buy from master server systemaccount itself. User won't be redirected to the respective shoppingwebsite. Depending on the embodiment preferred, Shopping can be carriedout on the client side, the server side, or both.

NEWS Component. This component of the master server system can allow theuser to integrate the news listings from various news websites. In asense, the site can remotely access each news site, retrieve a list ofnews from that website, combine that list with lists from other sites,and display this information to the user. The user can be enabled toread the news from all accounts—preferably on a single screen.Additionally, each message can display what account it is from both inwords and, if so desired, in color. For example, if the news listing wasreceived from CNN then it might say “CNN” whereas news listing fromReuters might say “Reuters” in a different color. If a user does nothave an account on one of the news websites s/he can still browsethrough the free news listings on that website but he might not haveaccess to the premium content on that website.

Examples of news sites that can be supported include: cnn.com;reuters.com; msnbc.com; Google news; Yahoo news; Nytimes.com; etc. Thefollowing abilities are examples of what can be provided to users: Readnews; Aggregate news based on category(sports/politics/travel/entertainment etc); Aggregate news based on newssource (cnn/reuters/nytimes etc) or Blog entries; Aggregate news fromBlogs; Ability to rank the credibility of the source or quality of thecontent; Filtered views or ranked results based on user preferences oraggregate user rankings for credibility of source or quality of content.With further regard to allowing a user to view news from variouswebsites on a single site or page, a user can aggregate the resultsbased on news source and/or news category. The user can be allowed toadd news websites. The master server system can get the news in thedifferent categories from the websites s/he has added. Representativesteps to implement NEWS component can be: User logs in to the masterserver system website and goes to news page on the master serversystem's website; LOGIN—master server system can log in to each of theuser's accounts (news websites); RETRIEVE—master server system canretrieve the results from each of the user's accounts; PARSE—masterserver system can parse the retrieved html page and store the pertinentdata in java objects; AGGREGATION—master server system can aggregate theresults from each of the user's accounts; DISPLAY—master server systemcan display the aggregated results to the user; etc. Again, as with anyof the embodiments discussed herein, depending on the embodimentpreferred, News can be carried out on the client side, the server side,or both.

Instant Messaging Component. This component allows users to aggregatethe authentication and usage of disparate Instant Messaging accounts.The user can authenticate, send, and receive instant messages, send andreceive files, and initiate or receive voice calls from any of theirInstant Messaging services via a single login and interface.Capabilities of aggregated Instant Messaging can also include: viewbuddy lists and online status of buddies form all accounts; use the IPaddress to overlay voice or file transfer capabilities to a IM accountthat did not have those capabilities; initiate ad hoc IM, file transferor voice sessions based on the users IP address whereby the accountidentifier was masked for each participant; overlay a Peer-to-Peer (p2p)file transfer protocol; store content on their local machines and defineaccess rights for other users in the P2p file sharing mechanism; alert auser when the online status of a buddy had changed on any account; addthe IM service to the aggregated Social Networking features; merge IMbuddy lists with email and social network contacts; link a IM Voice callto a land line or cell phone.

Internet TV Component. The Internet TV component of the master serversystem enables the user to aggregate streaming Internet TV listings fromvarious websites and enables access to the streaming Internet TVbroadcasts of interest to the user. There are now over 3,500 streamingTV stations accessible via the Internet from around the world. Atinitial setup of this component, the user can store his/her TVpreference to Internet TV sites and preferences such as languages,country of origin of the station, types of programming, etc. in themaster server system. When activated by the user, the system aggregatesand displays listings of preferred Internet TV stations and selectedcontents of interest to the user. Upon selection by the user, the masterserver system then enables the connection to the station for viewing theprogram.

Value Adding Services Component. In some embodiments, such a componentcan establish a centralized and unified application execution layer inorder to process logic or functionality uniformly across the aggregatedcontent or data prior to rendering to the user. Similarly, thiscomponent allows for a logical or functional application to be appliedto user-generated content or data prior to it posting back through anunderlying, third party system. Functionality that can be added to thiscomponent can include: Centralized or secondary Virus Scanning;Centralized or secondary Spell Checking; Centralized or secondary SpamChecking in order to both catch unwanted messages as well as catchmessages that had been misclassified as Spam by the underlying service;Centralized execution of user defined rules based on the message contextin order to file messages in predefined folders—delete, forward orclassify the message—or initiate an alert process such as sending an SMSor voicemail message to the recipient or sender; Centralized executionof system rules based on the message context in order to alter thecontent of a message, for the purpose of promoting features oradvertising services; Centralized search of aggregated message content(from email, social network, or other message service provider),allowing a user to search for keywords or phrases in message headers(sender, subject, date) or message bodies across multiple underlyingservices from a single search interface; Threading and displayingmessage conversations (as implemented in Google's Gmail product) formessages whose source underlying service does not natively threadconversations; Re-send as an email a message that is not natively anemail (for example, a message created as a Wall Post on Facebook couldbe sent to an email contact); Automatically generated list of elementsor contacts that were recently accessed by user where list would allowexpedited opening or display of the selected element or contact.

Status Aggregation Component This component of the website aggregatesand displays social status messages from other web sites. These statusmessages are typically short and may contain URLs linking to additionalweb-based content. They may be automatically generated by the underlyingsite due to an action taken at the site (for example a vote in an onlinesurvey) or they may contain content generated by a user of the site (forexample a message created on Twitter). This component displays anaggregated stream of status messages for a selected contact or group ofcontacts, where the status messages are retrieved from multipleunderlying sites at which the contact maintains an account.

Contact Communications Focus Component This component of the websiteaggregates and displays all communications of a contact or group ofcontacts selected by the user. The communications that are presented bythis component are sourced from all third party server systemsaggregated by the product. For example, a selected contact may use twodifferent email addresses, a social networking account and social statusmessages on two other web sites. This component would render anaggregated view of communications for the given contact from all fivesources, allowing a user to view the entirety of communication data fromthe contact. Additionally, this component facilitates the publishing ofthis aggregated content through RSS or another syndication scheme,allowing the user to monitor content updates using an RSS feed reader orother syndication client.

Activity Scoring Component This component of the website automaticallygenerates a numeric score that represents a user's level ofcommunication activity. This score can be based on data generated byeach of the services aggregated in the product including, but notlimited to, the rate that messages are received, the rate that messagesare sent, the total messages received, the total number of friendslisted at each service, or any combination thereof. This score can bepresented to the user in a number of ways throughout the product andused as a symbol of a user's status within the product. Incentives maybe offered for increasing this activity score by set amounts, such asawards, credits, or some form of consideration (e.g., monetaryconsideration). This component can also generate a second score based oneach individual service's activity rate, allowing each aggregatedservice to be ranked based on its individual contribution to activity,or viewed another way, as an indicator of respective usage of theservices. Additionally, this component can facilitate the display ofactivity scores through a web-based badge or “widget” that can bepublished on a third-party website (such as a blog or social networkprofile page) such that the score can be automatically updated in thepublished page.

Public Aggregation Component. This component of the website can allowthe user to create a publicly available page that aggregates content oftheir choosing. For example, the user can have their MySpace blog,Flickr pictures, News from the BBC and FaceBook ‘The Wall’ accessible tothe public through a provided web address such as http: //www (dot)oursite.com/username. The user can be enabled to login and updatecontent on this page through our interface. For example, the user canadd a blog entry to their LiveJournal Blog, respond to a comment on apicture they have on Flickr, update a resume on a job search site andchange a highlighted news story. The user can be enabled to publiclyaggregate blogs they write. The user can edit their publicly aggregatedblog to publish back content to each individual blog they manage. Theuser can be enabled to publicly aggregate blogs. The user is enabled tohave their blog publicly aggregate with other blogs. The user can defineaccessibility rules in order to password protect some or all of theiraggregated content.

Consider now illustrative software, e.g., Java, elements, any of whichcan be included depending on the implementation preferred:

Controller. This interface defines functionality for retrieving,downloading html content from a specific web URL (Uniform ResourceLocator), i.e., from a web address. The following initial retrievers canbe defined in the system: Yahoo Mail, Folders; MSN Mail, Folders; GmailMail, Folders; MySpace Mail, Folders; etc. The following emailfunctionality can be made common across all retrievers—define andimplement service specific functionality as follows: Login—user loginand logout; Get Folder List—retrieve the names of email folders; GetEmail Contacts—get list of email contacts; Get Messages from Folder—getan html page full of messages; Get Next Folder—get Messages for nextfolder; Get Previous Folder—get Messages for previous folder; GetMessage—get message body of a single message; Mark Message Read; MarkMessage as Unread; Move Message; Delete Message; Spam Message (e.g., “ISTHIS SPAM?”); Purge Message; Empty Trash Folder; Search Message—performsmessage search, returns a list of messages that match the given searchcriteria; Send Message; etc. Implementation of functionality for theabove mentioned interfaces also can affect the specific service beingused. For example, a Yahoo message deleted on the master server systemweb site can ultimately also delete the message from the underlyingYahoo service. Similarly, an MSN message marked “unread” on masterserver system web site can also cause the message to be marked unread onMSN.

For job search and shopping components, the master server system canretrieve the appropriate pages based on search query from all useraccounts. For news components, the master server system can retrieve theappropriate pages based on category and/or source from all useraccounts.

For any of the content retrieved, the master server system can “readahead” and retrieve and cache content in local memory based onanticipated request for retrieval to reduce the time between request andcontent rendering.

Content Parser. This component parses specific html content retrieved bythe controller into various meaningful pieces of information or tokens.Tokens can be stuffed into a Java object collection. Each object canalso be called a Value Object—a simple, lightweight Java object thatholds one piece of information—for example, a user's email message. Acollection constitutes one or more email messages for a given user. Thefollowing content parsers can be specified as part of the master serversystem software: Email—one email parser each for Yahoo, MSN, Gmail,MySpace.com, and SquirrelMail—parse Email from html retrieved from theabove mentioned providers for a particular user; Blogs; Forums; SocialNetworking; Job Search; News; Shopping; Internet TV; etc. The followingparsing functionality interfaces can be common across various providers,though their implementation can be as desired for one embodiment oranother: Parser Folder—Parse the contents of folder on an html page,extracting messages within it—individual message fields are parsed inorder to retrieve message attributes; Parse Contacts—Parse contactswithin an address book on an html page; Parse Folders—Parse folders froman html page; Parse Email Message—Parse email message from within anhtml page; Parse Job Postings—Parse job posting from within an htmlpage; Parse News Listings—Parse news listings from within an html page;Parse Product Listings—Parse product listings from within an html page;Parse TV Listings; etc.

Parsed Content Aggregator. This component consolidates, aggregatesparsed output, from similar web services from different providers. Thefollowing aggregators can be defined: Email—Consolidate and aggregateemail from a list of email providers—this list can contain, but is notlimited to, MySpace.com, Yahoo.com, Gmail.com, MSN.com, sites hostingSquirrelMail, and other email providers; Social Networking; Blogs;Forums; Job Search; News; Shopping; etc. The master server systemfacilitates combining output of all web services.

Content Renderer. This component can be used to render aggregatedcontent, e.g., by interacting with JavaScript to exchange data betweenthe Java applet and the underlying JavaScript. This can be a combinationof ASP.NET/HTML pages, where data is formatted server-side, andJavaScript on these pages that retrieves data from a client-sideapplication piece (herein exemplified as an applet, but consider alsoFlash or Silverlight, etc.) and merges the data into the browser page'sDocument Object Model (DOM).

Platform-independent Embodiment. The embodiments herein can beimplemented on third party platforms or web services. A page is createdinside the third party web site to implant the aggregation. Such anembodiment can be carried out by a system in which a computer programdirects scraping of data from a web page accessible at the address atissue and presenting, within the framework or platform of a third-partyweb service, a page populated with the scraped data.

Authentication, Cookie Management. To communicate with the master serversystem, a user can authenticate an identity, e.g., by using a designatedemail address and password. This information can be stored in a database. Depending on user's preference, a master server system cookie canbe saved on user's hard disk. If user chooses to allow the saving of thecookie, it can be used to authenticate in lieu of user using a login andpassword. Authentication information can be used to retrieve userpreferences from the master server system's data base including Emailsites, Social Networking sites, Blog sites, job boards, news sites,shopping sites and forum subscriptions, on subsequent logins. The masterserver system could also enable detection of the presence of cookiesused by known third party systems in order to prompt the user to add theservice, or ease the process of adding that service.

Provider Applet. To render email aggregated from multiple sites, in oneembodiment, the master server system could access Yahoo, MSN, Gmail,MySpace and other web service sites. This can be done by retrieving URLcontent from the server side to access the above-mentioned illustrativesites. However, it is conceivable that these businesses could block suchaccess, e.g., by blocking the master server system's finite IPaddresses—potentially crippling or shutting down the aggregation (i.e.,a server side embodiment requests would originate on a single or limitedserver side IPs). To address the blocking of IP issue, in anotherembodiment, the master server system can have a signed applet whichwould automatically be downloaded to the user computer system. Theapplet would serve as a “proxy” between the master server system's usersand the third party service provider, e.g., Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, etc.Requests originating on the applet side would contain the IP address ofthe end user (providers would not block an end-user IP address).

Please understand that the foregoing is offered to help orient thereader and is not intended to be the sole implementation. Aggregationcan encompass digital television, cellular communications, and on-linegames systems, etc. Even in a web implementation, there can be manyvariations, depending on preference. Indeed, the master server systemcan facilitate the ability to integrate, aggregate, and consolidatehomogeneous or heterogeneous services of various third party serviceproviders. As mentioned above, web-based services can include, but arenot limited to, email services, social networking services, blogs,forums, chats, chat rooms, job search services, news services, InternetTV services, Instant Messaging, File Sharing, VoIP and shoppingservices—preferably via user-enabled content management rather than byany proprietary presentation service.

To illustrate this point, consider one way of handling personalnetworking functionality in a use case where users are allowed toaggregate and reformat their public profile data from multiple sites.One embodiment can allow a user to choose bits and pieces from theirvarious social networking profiles (e.g., on MySpace, Facebook, etc.)and reformat them into a single Fuser public profile page. Said moregenerally, a personal networking site can involve a content provider(s)(e.g., the owner of the content on a personal networking site that ismaking the content available to a viewer) and a viewer (someone such asa user who desires to see the personal networking information from thecontent provider). In an embodiment, an aggregator system can allow thecontent provider to create a template for the display of informationfrom multiple sites. This information can be obtained preferably in realtime, e.g., as it is requested by a viewer, and presented to the viewerin the format designated by the content provider.

Turn now to the accompanying drawings, which illustrate embodiments indetail intended to illustrate and exemplify in a teaching and propheticmanner, rather than limit—much like teaching mathematical addition byexamples rather than by an explicit compendium of all additionpossibilities.

As used herein, the term “computer” generally refers to hardware orhardware in combination with one or more program(s), such as can beimplemented in software. Computer aspects can be implemented on generalpurpose computers or specialized devices, and can operate electrically,optically, or in any other fashion. A computer as used herein can beviewed as at least one computer having all functionality or as multiplecomputers with functionality separated to collectively cooperate tobring about the functionality. Logic flow can represent signalprocessing, such as digital data processing, communication, or asevident from the context hereinafter. Logic flow or “logic means” can beimplemented in discrete circuits, programmed computer, or theequivalent. Computer-readable media, as used herein can comprise atleast one of a RAM, a ROM, A disk, an ASIC, and a PROM. Industrial ortechnical applicability is clear from the description, and is alsoindicated below.

Now turn to FIG. 1, which illustrates a user system 2 able tocommunicate with master server system 4 and third party server system 6.Note that third party server system 6 is to illustrate that there can bea plurality of third party server systems, and note that the user system2 can communicate with one or more of the third party server systems 6.Third party server systems 6 n can, but need not, communicate amongthemselves.

User system 2 can comprise a computer (e.g., an IBM, Hewlett Packard, orother personal computer) with one or more processors (e.g., an Intel orAMD series processor or the like), a memory (e.g., a hard drive, diskdrive, etc.), an input device (e.g., keyboard, mouse, modem, or thelike), and one or more output devices (e.g., a modem, a Hewlett Packardprinter, a Dell monitor, or other such output device). Note that themodem is representative of a computer-to-computer communication devicethat can operate as an input/output device. To provide otherillustrative embodiments, the user system 2 can comprise at least one ofa desktop computer, a telephonic device, a game console, a laptopcomputer, and a mobile communication device. The mobile communicationdevice can comprise at least one of a cellular telephone, a telephonethat is not cellular, a pda, an (phone-type device. In many cases, theuser system 2 can include an operating system (e.g., Microsoft XPProfessional, Linux, Unix, etc.) and, or wherein, a program control(i.e., in application form or built into the operating system, etc.) tocarry out functionality in accordance with any of the embodimentsherein.

A master server system 2 can comprise a computer (e.g., Dell DL-585server) with one or more processors (e.g., Dell DL-585 servers withWindows 2003 Server) to carry out functionality in accordance with anyof the embodiments herein. Master server system 4 can comprise a servercomputer capable of communication with other computers over a networkand the hosting and delivery of web pages, media files, applications orother content. Master server system 4 can, but need not communicate withthe third party server systems 6.

A third party server system 6 can comprise a computer (e.g., Dell DL-585or the like) with one or more processors (e.g., Dell DL-585 is a typicalserver, Netscalar Load Balancers, Cisco firewalls and switches) to carryout functionality in accordance with any of the embodiments herein.Illustrative of third part server systems 6 n are America Online, Yahoo,Google, Microsoft, as well as systems that need not be Internet-based,such as cellular (Cingular, Verizon), cable TV systems such as Comcast,etc.

Communication between master server system 4, user system 2, and thirdparty server system 6 can comprise one or more of packet switched,circuit switched, etc., networks. Communication, illustratively, canoccur over a PSTN, Internet, and/or cable network, such as is providedby companies like AT&T/SBC.

Consider now, FIG. 2, which illustrates one of the many embodimentsincluded herein. In this embodiment, Master server system 4 deliversClient Application 7 to the User communication system 2. Once delivered,the client application 7 can be installed and persist on the usercommunication system or it can be delivered during each individualsession with the master server system. The client application 7 can be astand-alone or desktop application designed and written to leverage theoperating system on the user system 2. Alternatively, the clientapplication can be designed and written as a module or extension tofunction within another application already present on the user system2; for example a Java Applet or Active X component designed to executein a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer. The clientapplication 7 runs locally on the user system 2 in order to executefunctionality. The client application 7 utilizes the underlyingcommunication capabilities (e.g., networking hardware, network drivers,and operating system provided networking API) of the user system 7 inorder to communicate with both the master server system 4 and any ofthird party server systems 6 n. The master server system 4 storespersistent information to allow access the third party server systems 6n. This information can include the location of the server and any userauthentication credentials required to access any the third party serversystem 6 n. The client application 7 is capable of retrieving thisinformation persistent information (e.g., 3^(rd) party server networkaddresses and user credentials for that service) from the master server4 in order to directly access the third party server systems, inclusiveof any required authentication procedures.

FIG. 3 further illustrates an embodiment wherein the master serversystem 4 hosts a master user interface 8. The master user interface 8can comprise web pages, graphics, forms, logos and other stylisticelements, such as those that produce a uniform branding or look andfeel. The master server system 4 can deliver the master user interface 8to the client application 7. The master server system 4 can also deliverinformation defining at least one third party system resource 9 residingon the third party server systems 6 required as data objects in themaster user interface 8. This information can include the location of athird party system resource on one of the third party server systems 6n, parameters and methods required to access the resource, authenticateand hold a session on the third party system 6 n, any necessary logicrequired to parse or otherwise isolate specific data objects held withinthe third party system resource 9, etc. For example, the third partysystem resource 9 can be a web page, XML document, Web service response,RSS feed or other form of web resource wherein only specific elements,fields or information are needed. The client application 7 can retrievethe web page and isolate specific elements, fields or information inorder to populate the master user interface. The result is a uniformuser interface, assembled by the client application using the masteruser interface 8 as a template and resources from disparate third partyserver systems 6 n to populate the template. The client application 7can additionally accept user input from the master user interface 8 andrelay that input to any of the third party server systems 6 n. Thisallows the client application 7 to access third party systems resources9 or functionality which require user input.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment wherein the third party server systems6 n all provide a similar service. Such a service could be email, socialnetworking, instant messaging, photo or video sharing, news provisioningor a number of other services typically found in online systems. In thisembodiment, the client application 7 unifies the third party systemresources into a single master user interface. This provides a user witha single point of access to a variety of similar accounts or services aswell as a uniform experience and set of functionality.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment wherein the third party server systems6 n each provide separate or unique services. In this kind ofembodiment, the client application 7 can unify the third party systemresources 9 into a single master user interface 10. This provides a userwith a single point of access to a variety of services andfunctionality.

FIG. 6 illustrates the client application 7 delivered to and executingon a variety of user communication systems 2. The user system 2 can be apersonal computer, laptop, personal digital assistant, cellular phone,smart phone, television, set top box or any other device capable ofnetworking and executing compiled software programs.

Turn now to FIGS. 7 through 14, which illustrate an embodiment coveringemail account aggregation from multiple 3^(rd) party email services. Byway of a Mail Application Overview and Initial Account Setup Process,begin by considering FIG. 7. At block 20, the user navigates theirbrowser to Fuser(dot) com and opens the registration page over an SSLencrypted tunnel. At block 21, the user registers for a Fuser account byproviding a user name, password, and primary email address. Once theregistration is completed, at block 22 the user receives his/heractivation information via email. Using the activation link in theemail, the user activates his/her Fuser account by clicking on the link.At block 23, the user logs into Fuser(dot)com by supplying his/her username and password. Once authenticated, at block 24 the user isredirected to a web page containing a Java applet, which downloads andruns in the background. Once loaded, the applet requests the user'semail account(s) information from the server. If the applet gets emailaccount(s) credentials from the server, i.e. user has 3^(rd) partyaccounts already setup, the applet initializes these accounts forfurther processing (see Applet Initialization Process below for moredetail).

When the user either logs in or tries to register, the aggregator systemwill determine whether the user's Java version is to a suitable level,and if it is not to a suitable level, then the aggregator system willwalk the user through the process of updating the Java version.

At block 25, the user is taken to the add/remove services page toconfigure his/her 3^(rd) party email accounts to be aggregated. At block26, the user decides to define/setup a service account for aggregation.The user enters the email address and password for the service account.At block 27, JavaScript on the page determines if the service type andancillary settings can be derived to access needed to access thisservice, e.g. network address, etc.:

-   -   a. If the service type and settings are predefined, jump to c.    -   b. Ask the user for the service type. If the service type is        insufficient to derive the necessary settings, jump to d.    -   c. Try to validate the account by logging into the service via        the applet.        -   i. If the login attempt is successful, jump to block 28.    -   d. Attempt to determine the settings for the service account so        the user doesn't have to provide them (see FIG. 8-Discovery        Process for more detail).        -   i. If required settings are discovered, jump to block 28.    -   e. If the additional settings cannot be discovered, prompt the        user for more details.    -   f. Attempt to validate the account by logging into the service        via the applet, using the settings given by the user.        -   i. If the login fails, inform user of failure and jump back            to b        -   ii. If the login succeeds, jump to block 28.            Block 28 stores the account service information on the            server in an encrypted format, starts an initial data import            thread for the newly added service in the applet, and            displays an updated setup page to the user so he/she knows            the service was added.

After an account has been added, at block 29 an import process occurs toimport the initial data. (See FIG. 10—Initial Account Import Process formore detail.) At block 30, after setting up all of their 3^(rd) partyaccounts, the user can access an aggregated inbox or Mail Display page.(See FIG. 11—Mail Display Process for more detail.) At block 31, userscan view message contents from the aggregated inbox. (See FIG. 12—ViewMessage Process for more detail.) At block 32, users can compose newmessages or reply or forward existing messages. (See FIG. 12—ComposeMessage Process for more detail.) At block 33, after the user logs inand the applet is initiated, a background process checks for new mailand synchronizes existing mail runs periodically. (See FIGS. 14 and 15for more detail.)

Turn now to Email Account Settings Discovery Process (FIG. 8). At block34, an add/remove service page calls a discovery method on the Applet toattempt to determine the settings needed to successfully connect to andlogin to the service. The Applet is passed the user-supplied emailaddress and password. If the settings are known based on the emaildomain, an attempt is made to login to the underlying 3^(rd) partyservice using the email address and password. If successful, jump to 38.At block 35, if the settings are not immediately known or the loginfailed, the user is prompted to select the service type for thataccount, (e.g. Exchange, POP, IMAP, etc.). At block 36, the Appletconstructs a list of commonly used network address variants for theservice type by combining a common subdomain list with the domain forthe user's email address. For example, POP accounts will commonly accessa server with a pop or mail subdomain, so if the user's email addresswas xyz@fuser(dot) com, the constructed list would contain addresseslike pop(dot)fuser(dot)com or mail(dot)fuser(dot)com. At block 37, thelist is looped through, attempting to connect to and login to theunderlying service at each candidate network address using a knownsignature for a successful login. If no successful candidates arediscovered, jump to 39. At block 38, if a successful candidate isdiscovered, there is a return of a success indication to the callingwebpage along with the candidate settings and stop of furtherprocessing. At block 39, if not successful, there is a return of afailure indication.

Consider now a resolution process, e.g., CAPTCHA Resolution Process(FIG. 9). CAPTCHA is a means of determining whether the logon is a humanor not, often used to avoid spam bots and the like. At block 40, for anyrequest the Applet makes to an underlying service that can potentiallytrigger a CAPTCHA, the applet checks for a CAPTCHA indicator by parsingthe page looking for specific tags which would indicate that occurrencefor the service in question. At block 41, if a CAPTCHA is detected, theApplet stores the currently executing business process state and theCAPTCHA information is parsed and stored, and the business process issuspended. All this data is passed to a new CAPTCHA handling thread. Atblock 42, the Applet displays a dynamically configured dialog window tothe user with the CAPTCHA information and necessary input fields. Atblock 43, the user fills in the dialog with the information required toanswer the CAPTCHA and clicks OK. At block 44, the Applet submits theuser supplied answer to the service to clear the CAPTCHA state. At block45, if the logon is successfully cleared, the suspended business processis restored and executed.

Turn now to Initial Account Data Import (FIG. 10). At block 46, theApplet checks a service account import status and if it is not a newaccount, exits from this process. At block 47, the Applet importsservice account contact data by parsing the contact pages on theunderlying service website and calling a server web service withformatted contact data. At block 48, the server web service stores thecontact data in a data base. At block 49, the Applet imports a serviceaccount email folder structure by parsing the mail pages on theunderlying service website and calling a server web service with a listof folders found. At block 50, logic on the server maps certain“default” folders (e.g., Inbox, Trash, etc.) to pre-populated defaultfolders and adds the rest as user-defined folders in the data base. Atblock 51, the Applet loops through each folder, parses email metadata(e.g., From, Subject, Date Sent, read status, attachments flag) from theunderlying 3^(rd) party service's website and uploads this emailmetadata to the server via a SOAP—Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)is a common protocol used for web service communications in theindustry—web service call. At block 52, the server stores this data tothe data base—messages which reside in one of the folders which was“mapped” during the folder import process (see block 50 above) arestored under the appropriate mapped folder in the data base, whereasmessages in other folders are simply stored under the corresponding“user-defined folder” which was created in block 50 above. Depending onthe embodiment preferred, it is also possible to allow users toarbitrarily map any folder on the 3^(rd) party service to a desireddestination folder on the server, such that messages that are found inthe designated 3^(rd) party service folder during an import or updatewould automatically appear in the designated destination folder onceaggregation was complete. At the end, the Applet calls a SOAP webservice call on the server to update the account import status for thisaccount. The server stores this status to the data base.

Now consider Aggregated Mail Display Process (FIG. 11), wherein at block53, the user accesses a webpage to view his/her aggregated inbox. Atblock 54, the server pulls the appropriate email metadata from the database across all services, based on the display parameters (sort order,filter, number to display per page). At block 55, the server constructsand renders the page with this aggregated list and delivers to clientbrowser for display to the user.

Turn now to View Message Process (FIG. 12). At block 56, the useraccesses a webpage to view a particular email message. At block 57, theserver renders the requested page, which contains JavaScript constructedto call into the Applet with the requested email ID and delivers toclient browser for display to the user. At block 58, the JavaScript onthe page calls a method on the Applet with the requested Email ID inorder to retrieve the message contents (email body, To/CC recipientlists, attachment list, etc.) from the 3^(rd) party service's website.At block 59, the Applet makes a connection to the 3^(rd) party service'swebsite. At block 60, the Applet requests the needed page where themessage contents reside, and at block 61, the Applet parses the returnedHTML page and converts the appropriate message information to XMLformat. This XML is returned to the calling page. At block 62,JavaScript on the view message page processes this XML and formats themessage contents for display to the user.

Consider now Compose Message Process (FIG. 13). At block 63, the useraccesses a webpage to compose a new message, reply to an existingmessage, or forward an existing message. At block 64, the Server rendersthe compose page. The page is rendered with a list of potential Fromaddresses which is comprised of all the 3^(rd) party email accounts theuser has setup on the service. At block 65, the Server pre-populates theTo/CC recipient address fields and the message body as needed forreplies and forwards by parsing this data from the query string. Theserver delivers to the client browser for display to the user. At block66, the user selects an account to send from. At block 67, the usercomposes his/her message and optionally supplies filenames forattachments, if desired. At block 68, the user clicks send, and at block69, JavaScript on the page calls the send method on the Applet, passingparameters for the desired From address, To/CC addresses, message body,and attachment file list. At block 70, the Applet finds the selected“From” account in its internal service threads (loaded during AppletInitialization Process) and uses it to send the message by connecting tothe underlying 3^(rd) party website/server and using the normal sendfacilities on this site/server. At block 71, the compose message page(window) is closed on a success or an error is displayed to the user ona failure.

Account Synchronization Process (FIG. 14) can next be considered. Atblock 72, the Applet periodically compares the server-side metadata withthe underlying third party service provider's data by doing a standarddifference operation between email IDs and/or other available metadata.This occurs every n minutes and the steps below are executed once perfolder on each service. At block 73, the Applet retrieves the currentlist of message IDs for a given folder from the server. At block 74, theApplet parses the mail pages on the 3^(rd) party service to construct amessage ID list for a given folder. At block 75, these two lists aredifferentiated, and the differences are uploaded to the server asdeltas. At block 76, the Server uses the deltas to insert new and deletemissing messages for the current folder. At block 77, the Applet'sparent web page is notified if changes have been made. At block 78, theparent web page refreshes its list of messages from the data base, ifnecessary.

Attention is now drawn to New Message Check Process (FIG. 15). At block79, the Applet periodically checks for new messages on a 3^(rd) partyservice by looking for messages with timestamps newer than the last newmessage check timestamp. This occurs every n minutes and the steps beloware executed once per folder on each service. At block 80, the Appletretrieves the mail message list from the 3^(rd) party service, parsesthe message, and looks for any messages with a timestamp newer than thelast stored message on the server. At block 81, if new message(s) arefound, the metadata (From, Subject, Date Sent, Attachments flag, readstatus, etc.) is parsed for each of the new messages. At block 82, theApplet uploads this new metadata to the Server via SOAP web servicecalls. The server stores this new data to the email metadata table inthe data base. At block 83, the Applet calls a JavaScript function onthe parent page, notifying it that new mail has been found. At block 84,the parent web page refreshes its list of messages from the data base,if necessary.

FIG. 16 shows another example embodiment of the invention, aggregatingsocial networking instead of email messages. The process is identical tothat for email, with the exception that the information being aggregatedcould consist of any of the various social networking communiqués, suchas messages, comments, wall posts, etc. In addition to communications,social network profile and friends lists would be aggregated as well,opening up numerous potential secondary features such as:

-   -   Combine friend information from various sites into unified        displays    -   Show aggregated list of updates from friend pages    -   Show GPS information on friends (using maps)    -   Online status (which sites)    -   Communications leaderboard—social networking friends are rank        ordered based on the # of communications received from that        friend during a designated time period.    -   Broadcast updates/messages to multiple sites/pages    -   People you should know (friends of friends)    -   Various inbox message types    -   SMS messages sent to phone whenever changes or events occur on        friends' social networking profile pages    -   Degrees of separation display—how many degrees of separation are        you from famous/notable social networkers or other user-defined        social networkers    -   Find friends with similar interests, topics, pages (we found        these for you)    -   Access via mobile phone or other mobile device    -   Social networking integration with XBOX Live    -   Profile Images    -   Introduce friends    -   What am I doing now display    -   Profile Editing    -   Page Editing    -   Notification to IM Client of changes to friends pages    -   Games, e.g. an online version of tag made using social        networking communications    -   Share RSS feeds or RSS favorites    -   Karma point tracking—users can award (or subtract) other user's        karma points for good/bad deeds

FIG. 17 illustrates a sample embodiment for aggregating instantmessaging accounts. The process is identical to that for email, theprimary difference being the nature of the communications beingaggregated.

FIG. 18 illustrates a sample embodiment for aggregating multimedia,i.e., streaming video, audio, images, etc. The process is identical tothat for email, the primary difference being that media from differentsources is aggregated into a single interface rather than email.

FIG. 19 illustrates a sample embodiment for aggregating e-commercesites. The process is identical to that for email, the primarydifference being that pricing, recommended items, sales ads, auctions ofinterest, etc. are being pared and aggregated for the user.

FIG. 20 illustrates a sample embodiment for aggregating data from 3^(rd)party forums. The process is identical to that for email, the primarydifference being that forum threads and posts from different 3^(rd)party sites are aggregated rather than email. In this case, anotification framework for when new messages are posted to a selectedthread of interest is shown. After setting up services for all of the3^(rd) party forum sites of interest (at blocks 176-179), the user canthen select which message threads on those sites are of interest tomonitor (at blocks 180/181). The aggregated display (at block 182) thencontains only the threads of interest and updates to those threads areindicated as new messages in the aggregated inbox. These thread updatenotifications can be replied to, which replies to the thread on theunderlying forum (at block 184). For example, the 3^(rd) party forumsoftware can be “Community Server”, that is provided by TelligentSystems. However, the user interface for the 3^(rd) party forum softwarecan be modified as may be desired.

FIGS. 21-32 provide illustrative embodiments of user interfaces. FIG.21, for example, illustrates a Home Page Overview. The home page shows a“dashboard” display of the current status across all aggregatedaccounts, including email and social networking accounts. In this case,two email accounts and a social networking account are shown and thenumber of unread messages is summarized. Additional summary type dataculled from aggregation can be displayed here in the future.

FIG. 22 shows an example of an Aggregated Inbox Overview. The aggregatedinbox shows a detail view of all aggregated message data for the currentuser. In this case, the first page of messages is shown for two emailaccounts and a social networking account. Accounts are color coded foreasy identification of what service an individual message is associatedwith. The page also supports enabling/disabling of accounts by clickingon the color-coded account name in the top bar, to allow filtering ofwhich accounts data is displayed from. Typical email interfaceoperations such as column sorting, grid pagination, folders, messages todisplay per page, etc. are supported.

FIG. 24 provides an example of a Communication Leaderboard Overview. TheSocial Networks Communications Top 48 Leaderboard is a summary of theuser's most frequent social networking correspondents. The Leaderboardranks friends based on the frequency of their correspondence, calculatedby combining the total of messages and wall posts (Facebook) or messagesand comments (MySpace), for the time period the user selects.Color-coding identifies the social network of the friend. In anotherembodiment, rather than the—say—top 48, the number is user-selectable.For example, a radio-button choice can be provided at a user interface.The display at the user interface can also be filterable based on theservice provider. For example, the service providers of Myspace andFacebook can be aggregated, or the user can selectively filter out oneof these providers.

Depending on the implementation preferred, a summary panel on the userinterface can display (e.g, randomly selected) Friends' pictures and/orrecent (e.g., 2 most recent) communications received from the socialnetwork(s).

Other Features

The foregoing is, again, illustrative. Thus, variations on the theme canbe carried out depending on the particular implementation desired in onesituation or another. Here are a few other features that can beutilized, if so desired.

Aggregation of Aggregators. One embodiment is to aggregate fromaggregators, thereby achieving a broader reach of third party sourcesystems. For example, the third party service provider systems describedthroughout this document can themselves be aggregators, e.g., anInternet Service Provider like AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Google, etc. canincorporate aggregation into their systems. Then, such a third partyservice provider can include an aggregator component to aggregate fromother third party servers (service providers), e.g., AOL could providean aggregation of MSN, Yahoo/SBC, etc. It is possible to aggregate intiers too, such as a master server system aggregating from, say, AOL,which itself aggregates from MSN, etc., which in turn aggregates fromYahoo, etc.

Security Response. Third party systems can have a security response toaggregating, e.g., to block or prevent—or at least attempt to block orprevent—a master server system from an embodiment aggregating content ordata held on a source web system. The security response to an aggregatorsystem can be crude, e.g., the third party service provider can requireusers to contractually agree not to aggregate from their site, e.g., bymeans of an on-line contract, or more softly, warning or rule. Otherthird party security responses to an aggregator system can include:Blocking an IP address or range of IP addresses; inserting dynamiccontent or changing the DOM structure of the underlying source code ofthe page such that it randomly affects the parsing of the page;Challenging the client with additional prompts for usernames, passwords,or image verification; etc. To particularize one of these examples, foran embodiment where the parsing keys off of elements in the page havingcertain names or being in a certain place within the structure ofelements on the page, changing the names or this structure could foilthe page parsing logic. For instance, if the aggregator was looking fora textbox called EmailAddress on a page to get the user's email addressand the 3^(rd) party site changed the name of this textbox toMessUpFuserEmailAddress or some random name like EmailAddress101, itwould break the parsing of that page to make it hard to automaticallyfind the information being sought by the aggregator. (As used herein,“fuser” or “Fuser” refers to an illustrative master server system 4.) Asecurity response by a third party service provider to an aggregatorsystem (e.g., to prevent, obstruct, confuse the aggregationfunctionality) is an embodiment of the system herein disclosed.

Aggregator Third Party Communication Embodiment

The third party source systems are not in conflict with an aggregationsystem, at least because the aggregation system enables the user tohandle his or her data and manage content provided to the user, e.g., byproviding user-enabled content management. It is more of a symbioticrelationship, wherein the aggregator can help users make best use oftheir third party systems, and the third party systems can experiencemore user traffic facilitated by the aggregator systems. Thus,embodiments herein can have the master server system provide to the usersystem hyperlinks or network address information to enable joining orexpeditiously communicating with various third party service providers.For example, a link or button can be provided to the user computers 2 toenable expeditious viewing of a third party service provider's home pageor some other page offered to users. If desired, advertising can beadded to the Home Page, Inbox Page, or other aggregator page.

Modification of Outlook Embodiment

Another manner of implementation is to modify a client or browser, suchas Firefox or Microsoft's Outlook, to handle some or all of theaforesaid client-side aggregating. The modification could be carried outas a plug in to the browser. Such an embodiment could operate inconjunction with the above-mentioned master server system 4. In the caseof an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Microsoft, the ISP can bethe master server system 4.

Error Handling Errors can be generated in many areas of functionality inan aggregator system, for example at a web site, at the aggregators webservice, in a data base, in an applet, etc. For each of these areasthere can be multiple error conditions. In one embodiment, an aggregatorcan implement programmed intelligence to handle and process errors. Forexample, when an error is detected or trapped, the aggregator canpresent an error code to the user interface to trigger presentation of amessage to the user, e.g., instructing the user to change a page or togo to a page or take to some other action. Unhandled errors can beaccommodated, and for errors that do not match an error code, aninstruction can be sent to the user interface to inform the user that aparticular action has occurred. Preferably the user is not only informedthat there was an error, but is also presented with an instruction, suchas to try again, or click a link.

Server-side Embodiment

Server-side embodiments, though encompassed herein, are believed to beslower than client-side embodiments, as regards presentation to the usercomputer of real-time communications. This is especially true wheredownloads occur in a background mode (as Outlook does) or where theFuser client opens parallel sessions at startup (something Outlookapparently cannot do). The speed is attributable to having one less linkin the communication chain, i.e., instead of third-party serverscommunicating real-time communication to the server-side implementation,that relays the real-time communication to the user computer, theserver-side relaying is taking out of the chain of communication with aclient-side embodiment.

Computer-readable Media

Note that embodiments herein are directed to the computer-readable mediatangibly embodying program instructions to carry out operationsmentioned herein.

Review again the foregoing figures from a functional perspective. Firstnote again that an aggregation can be formed server side, client side,or both. That is, though not shown in FIGS. 1-6, it is entirely possibleto configure an aggregation system such that a master server system 4that is interposed between the user computer system 2 and the thirdparty server systems 6. In another embodiment, the system can beconfigured such that there is more accessing and aggregating processingoccurring on the client side than on the server side, with “more”extending up to the accessing being performed only at the client side.Thus, if one prefers, the aggregation system can be configured such thatthe master server system 4 is not in communication with the third partyservers in carrying out the aggregation. Consider, for example too, asystem in which the user computer system 2 is enabled to function as aproxy between the master server system 4 and the third party serversystems 6. Phrased differently, a user computer system 2 can beinterposed between (i.e., via a segment of the Internet or othernetwork) allowing communication between the user computer system 2 andat least one server system 4, and (other segments) allowingcommunication between the user computer system 2 and a plurality ofthird party server systems 6, with the at least one server system 4enabling the user computer system 2 to access the plurality of thirdparty servers.

When it comes to speed of aggregating real-time information, it isbelieved that a client-side aggregation is faster than server-sideaggregating because there is one less link in the communication chain informing the aggregation. Server-side processing may be more suitable formobile applications. User computer systems 2 may have differentcapabilities, which can be reflected in whether certain processing bestoccurs server side or client side.

With particular relevance to a client-side embodiment, there can be amaster server system 4 programmed to provide credentials (e.g., whateveris needed for a log-in) to a browser of, or otherwise to, a usercomputer system 2. There can be a client-side application piece, such asa Java-based application, applet, etc., at the user computer system 2.The client-side piece can be adapted to receive the credentials and tocommunicate respective portions of the credentials to obtain access toeach of a plurality of third party server systems 6, and to enable theuser computer system 2 to aggregate information from the third partyserver systems 6.

The aggregated information can be stored to a data base and/or presentedin a human-discernable manner (e.g., display, sound, etc.) at the usercomputer system 2. For example, the user computer system 2 can be madecapable of displaying, within at least one window, the aggregation, andif preferred, along with an indication of the third party serversystems. More particularly, the aggregation can be comprised of emailmessages from each of the third party server systems, and the indicationcan include a visual signal of which of the particular said third partyserver systems 6 corresponds to a particular one of the email messages.In another manner of presenting the information, the user computersystem can be capable of displaying, within at least one window, aunified presentation of communications from more than one socialnetwork. Presentation of the aggregation can be subject to definition bythe user computer system 2.

There can be an automatic log-in to each of the third party serversystems 6 or by a user-selectable button or link for each said thirdparty server system 6. (In any case, the user computer system 2 can alsobe provided with a user a button or link to at least one particular pagewithin at least one of said third party server systems 6, so as toconveniently enable the user to efficiently view any page.)

In an interesting way of phrasing an embodiment, the user computersystem 2 can receive, from the master server system 4, respectivecredentials for accessing each of a plurality of third party serversystems and then implement the received access credentials to produce anaggregation of information. That is, prior to receiving the respectivecredentials, the user computer system 2 communicates the respectivecredentials to the master server system 4, which conveys them back tothe user computer system 2 in a manner accessible by the client-sideapplication piece. Accordingly, transmitted information between theclient-side application and the server-side application can enableaggregating the communications into a presentation at the user computersystem.

In some embodiments, then, the mere logging in by the user computersystem 2 at the master computer system 4 or a web page of the system 4can trigger formation of an aggregation. Consider a web page incommunication with a user device such as user communications computersystem 2. The communication can enable communicating a computer programto the user device, the computer program providing network addressinstruction to the user device and automatically facilitatingauthentication at the address. The program can direct scraping of datafrom a web page accessible at the address and presenting, at the userdevice, a page populated with the data. This can all be done withoutuser intervention beyond logging on to the master server system 4.

Continuing on, the aggregator system—depending on the embodimentpreferred—include one or more of the following: a controller forobtaining information from the third party server systems; a contentparser to parse the information obtained from the third party serversystems; and a content renderer to render to the user computer systeminformation obtained from the third party server systems. The masterserver system 4 can make at least one of the following componentsaccessible to the user computer system 2: Email, social network, jobsearch, shopping, news, instant messaging, Internet television,value-added services, and public aggregation.

In such an aggregation system consider the following examples of whatmay be aggregated. The aggregation can include one or more of thefollowing: text communications, voice communications, videocommunications, and multimedia communications. Communications aggregatedat the user computer system 2 can also include feeds, such as Internetradio, Internet television and/or other multimedia. The textcommunications can include email, sms messages, and instant messages.Other communications can include telephone messages, and web siteinformation. In the situation of an aggregator of an aggregator (e.g.,at least one of the third party servers 6 is itself an aggregator) anaggregation can include another aggregation.

The aggregation can be formed, for example, by having the master serversystem 4 provide a template to the user computer system 2 and enablingthe system 2 to form a page by populating the template with data scrapedfrom a plurality of third party servers 6. In such an embodiment, themaster server system need not receive the page. That is, for example,the master server system 4 can provide a web page template to the usercomputer system 2 along with logic to parse information obtained fromthe third party server systems 6. This permits accessing, at respectiveuser interfaces, the third party server 6 web pages, parsing the webpages for data elements, and reformatting the data elements to producean aggregation of, say, email in at least one of a unified userinterface or a data base. Note that the aggregation can be intelligent,e.g., if that which is being aggregated comprises email, there can be adynamic discovery of an email service type and configuration.

As previously mentioned, there can be a data base, accessible to themaster server system 4, and structured to receive at least some of thedata from the user computer system 2. At least some data from theaggregation can be saved to produce a subsequent aggregation by fetchingnew data, and combining the new data with the saved data. The data basecan include at least some encrypted information, including user namesand user passwords for each of the plurality of third party serversystems 6. In some embodiments, any information communicated between theclient side and server side applications can be encrypted. Text of emailmail and instant messages can be encrypted. In the case of encryptedinformation obtained from at least one of the third party servers, therecan be an aggregation of encrypted information that can be unencryptedfor presentation to at the user computer system 2.

Beyond being an aggregator, the master server system 4 can be anInternet portal, and/or provide its own community. As such, the masterserver system 4 is capable of aggregating various contacts lists to forman aggregated contacts list and storing the aggregated contacts list;aggregating various friends lists to form an aggregated friends list andstoring the aggregated friends list; and/or aggregating various profilesfrom more than one social network and storing the aggregated profiles.

In response to an attempt to form an aggregation, however, there can bea security response at a third party server system 6. The securityresponse can be adapted to interfere with at least one of the operationsof accessing the third party server system 6, accessing the third partyserver system 6 by the master server system 4, the obtaininguser-accessible information from the third party server system 6, oraggregating the user-accessible information.

Though just as the aggregator embodiments herein are viewed asinventive, so is a security response to them, again an aggregationsystem can have a symbiotic relationship with the third party serversystems 6, respectful them by even by facilitating their use. Thefacilitating can include providing, at the user computer systems 2, witha link or button to view whatever of the user's data or user-accessibledata on the third party server 6 site that may be efficiently desired bya user.

In any case, there are many of variations that may utilize the teachingsherein, depending on the particular implementation preferred in onesituation or another. Thus, the terms and expressions which have beenemployed herein are used as terms of teaching and not of limitation, andthere is absolutely no intention, in the use of such terms andexpressions, of excluding equivalents of the features shown anddescribed, or portions thereof, it being recognized that variousmodifications are possible within the scope of the embodimentscontemplated and suggested herein. Similarly, the disclosure herein hasbeen described with reference to embodiments, and the disclosures areintended to be illustrative and are not intended to be limiting. Variousmodifications and applications may occur to those skilled in the artwithout departing from the true spirit and scope of what is communicatedhereby, as defined in the appended claims.

Thus, although only a few exemplary embodiments have been described indetail above, those skilled in the art can readily appreciate that manymodifications are possible in the exemplary embodiments withoutmaterially departing from the novel teachings and advantages herein.Accordingly, all such modifications are intended to be included withinthe scope defined by claims. In the claims, means-plus-function claimsare intended to cover the structures described herein as performing therecited function and not only structural equivalents, but alsoequivalent structures. Thus, although a nail and a screw may not bestructural equivalents in that a nail employs a cylindrical surface tosecure wooden parts together, whereas a screw employs a helical surface,in the environment fastening wooden parts, a nail and a screw may beequivalent structures.

We claim:
 1. An aggregation apparatus including: a device capable ofboth networking and executing software programs, the device programmedso that the aggregation apparatus: connects to a plurality of serversvia the Internet, and then authenticates itself with each of theplurality of servers, and then retrieves information from each of theplurality of servers, and then parses the information from each of theplurality of servers so as to produce an aggregation of parsedinformation, and then renders the aggregation as output.
 2. Theapparatus of claim 1, wherein the device comprises a set top box.
 3. Theapparatus of claim 1, wherein the device comprises a television.